ICFERST

The Imperial College Finite Element Reservoir Simulator (IC-FERST) is a general purpose code for simulating multiphase flow and transport in complex geological reservoirs.  The governing equations are solved using a novel, high-order control-volume-finite-element formulation, specifically designed for the high-aspect-ratio problems typical of such reservoirs. 

A key feature of IC-FERST is the use of dynamic, unstructured mesh optimisation that better resolves key features of the solution compared to fixed grid methods.  Fully implicit timestepping admits the use of large mesh Courant numbers, using a double-fixed point iteration method with backtracking to improve convergence and convergence rate.

The code is available under the terms of the LGPL open source license.

 

 

Animation shows a numerical simulation of unstable, gravity-driven flow.  Mesh adaptivity here is used to capture the formation of downwards propagating 'fingers' of more dense fluid (in red).  From Bahlali et al. (2022),  Efficient Numerical Simulation of Density‐Driven Flows: Application to the 2‐and 3‐D Elder Problem, Water Resources Research 58, e2022WR032307.

Selected publications

Bahlali ML, Salinas P, Jackson MD, 2022, Efficient Numerical Simulation of Density-Driven Flows: Application to the 2-and 3-D Elder Problem, WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, Vol: 58, ISSN: 0043-1397

Hamzehloo A, Bahlali ML, Salinas P, Jacquemyn C, Pain CC, Butler AP, Jackson MDet al., 2022, Modelling saline intrusion using dynamic mesh optimization with parallel processing, ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, Vol: 164

Regnier G, Salinas P, Jacquemyn C, Jackson MDet al., 2022, Numerical simulation of aquifer thermal energy storage using surface-based geologic modelling and dynamic mesh optimisation, HYDROGEOLOGY JOURNAL, Vol: 30, Pages: 1179-1198, ISSN: 1431-2174

Kampitsis AE, Kostorz WJ, Muggeridge AH, Jackson MDet al., 2021, The life span and dynamics of immiscible viscous fingering in rectilinear displacements (vol 33, 096608, 2021), PHYSICS OF FLUIDS, Vol: 33, ISSN: 1070-6631

Silva VLS, Salinas P, Jackson MD, Pain CCet al., 2021, Machine learning acceleration for nonlinear solvers applied to multiphase porous media flow, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Vol: 384, Pages: 1-17, ISSN: 0045-7825

Kampitsis AE, Kostorz WJ, Muggeridge AH, Jackson MDet al., 2021, The life span and dynamics of immiscible viscous fingering in rectilinear displacements, PHYSICS OF FLUIDS, Vol: 33, ISSN: 1070-6631

Salinas P, Regnier G, Jacquemyn C, Pain CC, Jackson MDet al., 2021, Dynamic mesh optimisation for geothermal reservoir modelling, Geothermics, Vol: 94, Pages: 1-13, ISSN: 0375-6505

Yekta A, Salinas P, Hajirezaie S, Amooie MA, Pain CC, Jackson MD, Jacquemyn C, Soltanian MRet al., 2020, Reactive transport modeling in heterogeneous porous media with dynamic mesh optimization, Computational Geosciences: modeling, simulation and data analysis, Vol: 25, Pages: 357-372, ISSN: 1420-0597

Salinas P, Pain C, Osman H, Jacquemyn C, Xie Z, Jackson Met al., 2020, Vanishing artifficial diffusion as a mechanism to accelerate convergence for multiphase porous media flow, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Vol: 359, Pages: 1-15, ISSN: 0045-7825

Kampitsis AE, Adam A, Salinas P, Pain CC, Muggeridge AH, Jackson MD, 2020, Dynamic adaptive mesh optimisation for immiscible viscous fingering, COMPUTATIONAL GEOSCIENCES, Vol: 24, Pages: 1221-1237, ISSN: 1420-059

Salinas P, Pavlidis D, Xie Z, Osman H, Pain C, Jackson MD et al., 2018, A robust mesh optimisation method for multiphase porous media flows, Computational Geosciences, Vol: 22, Pages: 1389-1401, ISSN: 1420-0597

Salinas P, Pavlidis D, Xie Z, Osman H, Pain CC, Jackson MD et al., 2018, A discontinuous control volume finite element method for multi-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS, Vol: 352, Pages: 602-614, ISSN: 0021-9991

Gomes JLMA, Pavlidis D, Salinas P, Xie Z, Percival JR, Melnikova Y, Pain CC, Jackson MD et al., 2017, A force-balanced control volume finite element method for multi-phase porous media flow modelling, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Vol: 83, Pages: 431-445, ISSN: 0271-2091

Salinas P, Pavlidis D, Xie Z, Jacquemyn C, Melnikova Y, Jackson MD, Pain CC, et al., 2017, Improving the robustness of the control volume finite element method with application to multiphase porous media flow, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Vol: 85, Pages: 235-246, ISSN: 0271-2091

Salinas P, Pavlidis D, Xie Z, Adam A, Pain CC, Jackson MD, et al., 2017, Improving the convergence behaviour of a fixed-point-iteration solver for multiphase flow in porous media, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Vol: 84, Pages: 466-476, ISSN: 0271-2091

Adam A, Pavlidis D, Percival JR, Salinas P, Xie Z, Fang F, Pain CC, Muggeridge AH, Jackson MD, et al., 2016, Higher-order conservative interpolation between control-volume meshes: Application to advection and multiphase flow problems with dynamic mesh adaptivity, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS, Vol: 321, Pages: 512-531, ISSN: 0021-9991

Mostaghimi P, Percival JR, Pavlidis D, Ferrier RJ, Gomes JLMA, Gorman GJ, Jackson MD, Neethling SJ, Pain CC, et al., 2015, Anisotropic Mesh Adaptivity and Control Volume Finite Element Methods for Numerical Simulation of Multiphase Flow in Porous Media, MATHEMATICAL GEOSCIENCES, Vol: 47, Pages: 417-440, ISSN: 1874-8961

Jackson MD, Percival JR, Mostaghiml P, Tollit BS, Pavlidis D, Pain CC, Gomes JLMA, El-Sheikh AH, Salinas P, Muggeridge AH, Blunt MJ, et al., 2015, Reservoir Modeling for Flow Simulation by Use of Surfaces, Adaptive Unstructured Meshes, and an Overlapping-Control-Volume Finite-Element Method, SPE RESERVOIR EVALUATION & ENGINEERING, Vol: 18, Pages: 115-132, ISSN: 1094-6470‌